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In the context of patent law, using the Internet as a source of prior art when assessing whether an invention is novel and inventive (two conditions for patentability), may be problematic if it is difficult to ascertain precisely when information on websites became available to the public.〔T 1134/06, Reasons 3.2: "''It is thus at the present state of affairs often very difficult to establish with a high degree of reliability what exactly appeared on a web site and when.''"(emphasis added)〕 == Background == In most patent laws, an (alleged) invention must be ''new'' and ''inventive'' (or non-obvious, which is basically synonymous of ''inventive'') to be considered ''patentable'', i.e., to be validly patented. An invention is considered new if it does not form part of the ''prior art'' (or state of the art), i.e., if it was not already disclosed in the prior art.〔See for instance, in the European Patent Convention (EPC), .〕 An invention is considered inventive if it is not obvious in view of the prior art.〔See for instance, in the EPC, .〕 The prior art is essentially everything available to the public before the filing date of the patent.〔 The definition of the prior art, i.e. what is part of the prior art and what is not part of the prior art, however depends on the legislation considered, since patent laws are essentially territorial in nature.〕 In practice, if a device or a method was already known (e.g. described in a scientific paper) before the filing date〔or priority date.〕 of the patent covering the device or the method or if the device or method is obvious in view of what was known before the filing date, then, in general, it is not considered new (because known before the filing date) or not considered inventive (because obvious in view of what was known before the filing date of the patent), and then not considered ''patentable''. A patent cannot be obtained for the device or method, or, if obtained (''granted''), it can generally be "invalidated". The identification of the prior art is therefore of utmost importance to determine whether an invention is patentable, i.e. whether a patent can be granted for an invention (or whether a patent granted for an invention is valid). The purpose of the novelty criterion is to prevent the prior art being patented again.〔(''Case Law of the Boards of Appeal of the European Patent Office (Fifth edition 2006)'' ), pages 46-47. (pdf 4.1 MB).〕 The Internet is a popular source of technical information and is of particular interest for the purposes of establishing the prior art. Its use is however surrounded by concerns as to its reliability.〔T 1134/06, Reasons 3.6.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Internet as a source of prior art」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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